European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 25, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Dead Trees stand at sit Versea about four Miles North of the Bast German City of Bitterfeld which has been called the dirtiest City in Europe. Troubles in the East Bitterfeld the dirtiest City in Europe by Diana jeans chemo Baltimore Sun the West German Flag at the cab chemical Combine in Bitterfeld East Germany the towns biggest employer has been flying in Celebration of German Unity for Only a few months. But like All the flags flying there it is faded and shredded Stark evidence of the poisonous air. In the months since the communist downfall in East Germany Bitterfeld has been named the dirtiest City in Europe. It is a City drained of color where a layer of soot seems to cover every building and Road sign. A Bright Flash of clean Orange or yellow would startle residents of Bitterfeld As would a Bird soaring by. Come to Bitterfeld and inside of an hour your eyes will sting and your nose will run. You will fee invisible mallets pounding at your temples As nausea sets in. Miles of smokestacks Industrial pipes and rusting storage tanks Are Bitterfeld a landscape. Touch the wild plants and weeds that manage to grow there and your fingertips turn Black. At Greppin the most polluted town in the Bitterfeld metropolitan Region smokestacks blow a steady deadly Stream of yellow Fulfur dioxide into the air. Two minutes of breathing the stench Are enough to make a stranger gag Bitterfeld a 21,000 people most of whom earn about $1,500 a month a twice the average wage for an Industrial worker a for working in the cab chemical Combine and the other chemical industries Here have Long suspected they were dying slowly from the environment but they could never learn just How bad it  their children broke out in skin rashes factory doctors gave them ointments that cleared up the rashes but they never told parents what caused them said Herbert Jahnke 37, a father of two. Nor would they confirm that the children lagged behind in their physical development by two to eight months or that bronchitis and other respiratory diseases were two to three times More common in bitter fold than elsewhere in East Germany. But Jahnke said he did not need doctors to Tell him what caused his son s skin rash. It is the same pollution that forces him to Wash his Blue Skoda car every other Day if he wants to keep it from turning Gray. Speculation Here had it that in the drive to meet work quotas and Cut costs factories often shut off their filters at night. Above it All the old communist regime decreed a secrecy that enveloped the environmental catastrophe now democracy has come to East Germany and with it some figures on the magnitude of Bitterfeld a systematic defilement of its air land and water Supply Rainer Becker a Holdover from the communists who is now in charge of Bitterfeld a Catchall department of Energy water management environmental Protection and recreation said Bitterfeld s main industries were chemical processing and the processing of the polluting soft Brown Coal that most East germans use to heat their Homes. Each year Bitterfeld s industries dump 90,000 tons of Fulfur dioxide into the air a creating an environment five times the level dangerous to humans Becker said they Emit 13,000 tons of nitrogen oxides a roughly two to three times the danger level. They pump 40,000 tons of dust into the air. Environmentalists taking samples from bodies of water around Bitterfeld in the Early 1980s found go percent of them biologically dead they found 70 percent to 80 percent of its three Rivers a the Mulde the Fuhner and the Leine a devoid of life. But for most people the immediate concern is employment rather than the environment. The workers of Bitterfeld Are relieved that the Region i t probably remain East Germany s chemical Industry censer despite suspicions of layoffs ahead As West German companies take Over and modernize their outmoded systems see related stories on pages 14-15. Saturday August 25, 1990 the stars and stripes Page 13 c